


the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. literally.

by wandering_clouds



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, Genderbend Background Character, M/M, Pining, donghyuck is bad at feelings, subtle hints of magic, whats a love story without hurdles caused strictly by the mains dumbassery and obliviousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27755998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wandering_clouds/pseuds/wandering_clouds
Summary: For when one's soulmate laughs, others feel warmth but Donghyuck feels pain — if only he doesn't let it blind him into losing his fate's chance.or. Donghyuck gets a stomach ache everytime his soulmate laughs.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 8
Kudos: 158
Collections: Challenge #3 — soulmates





	the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. literally.

Donghyuck’s dilemma starts the day he gets paired up with a new coworker for his shift at The Stuff Shop. 

He adores his work at the store; living up to its name, it offers various curiosity-evoking things, varying from pretty and fascinating to strange and disturbing—mysteriously nobody ever knows where the stuff originates from. 

Entering The Stuff Shop feels like stepping into a foreign universe. Almost magically, the customers get swallowed up, so put under a spell by the overwhelming range of items that nobody leaves before having spent at least an hour indulging in the space of otherworldliness. 

When he’s at work, for just a second Donghyuck can pretend to exist in a worry free state of timelessness, letting himself sink into drowsiness summoned by the comforting scent of odd unknown spices and the all surrounding warmth the store offers. 

Rarely any new visitors stumble across the hidden store, their regular customers consisting mostly of old cat ladies with a particular interest for the spiritual—and they all very much adore Donghyuck. Consequently, for the longest time Donghyuck’s work life has consisted of getting pampered and lazing around. 

Now however, an issue has arisen putting his peace in danger - an issue named Mark Lee.

* * *

It’s a Tuesday when Donghyuck gets pulled out of his nap by a boy his age bursting into The Stuff Shop and declaring he’s its newest assistant. 

He should have known a person with button eyes that hypnotising could not be up to cause any good in his life. 

Donghyuck’s hair sticks up from his head into all directions of the sky and there’s probably some dried saliva stuck on his cheek which he had rested on the cash register before he was so rudely interrupted from his sleep, yet all he can focus on is the endearing way freshly-introduced Mark Lee is fumbling with his hands while waiting for him to answer.

Distracted as he is, Donghyuck takes some time to finally let out a disgruntled, not very polite reply - blame him for losing all sense of how to function in front of cute boys 101 - and Mark seems quite unsettled. _Like a lost helpless lion baby,_ Donghyuck’s brain unhelpfully adds. The look on his face would have been pitiful if it wasn’t so attractive. 

Donghyuck doesn’t apologise or explain himself, it’s not his thing, and new assistant Mark Lee will have to live with that.

* * *

Half an hour later Donghyuck decides everything that is connected to him and Mark Lee dealing with each other in any context will have to be called off until further notice. He’s heard him let out a laugh one time, his stomach plummeted painfully, and he’s had enough. 

Any kind of obnoxious laughs are strictly forbidden within a five foot distance of Lee Donghyuck. No exceptions, not even for cute boys who look at Donghyuck with honey dripped eyes.

You see, Donghyuck has a rather traumatic history connected to laughter. Perhaps, _that_ is actually where this whole dilemma starts.

Donghyuck has always hated the concept of soulmates. 

In theory, having butterflies in your stomach notify you whenever your other half lets out a laugh might be kind of sweet—except for the tiny little detail that Donghyuck doesn’t feel butterflies arising in his stomach when his soulmate experiences joy, he gets a stomach ache. 

And as if that wasn’t enough, he has been cursed with the most unbearably happy person on earth as his soulmate. Whoever they are—judging based on the almost regularly scheduled cramps Donghyuck gets—they must be laughing all the damn time - hard.

Under different circumstances he might have actually become a hopelessly romantic person - after all, for all twenty years of his life he’s heard enough people gushing about that beautiful and always accompanying feeling of belonging. The rush of joy that engulfs them as soon as their gut starts sending them the signal of their still unknown but promised special other expressing happiness. 

Must be nice to have such a positive connection to one’s soulmate, Donghyuck thinks.

While all the paired people around him mourn that first connection, he envies them. Getting rid of it—it’s all he’s ever been wishing for. He’d really rather be oblivious to his soul having a second half than having to deal with sudden pain at the absolutely worst times. 

Is he a bit resentful? Yes. 

But who can blame him when his first childhood memory is of his three year old self breaking out into sudden wails in the supermarket aisle because he was overcome by unbearable pain? That doesn’t sound very fun, now does it. 

So yes, he has every right to be angry. 

No, he isn’t thankful his soulmate is so fucking happy.

With how much Donghyuck’s suffering, his soulmate doesn’t only laugh unnecessarily often, but it’s probably an obnoxious laugh as well. 

And that’s the exact reason why he can’t stand hearing people laugh, especially those whose laugh is obnoxious - it just brings up too many bad memories.

* * *

“Uhm,” Donghyuck feels a hesitant tap on his shoulder, “I brought some sour worms with me and I noticed you haven’t eaten like at all today - by coincidence! Not that I’m like watching you or anything, haha - and wondered if you maybe, like, wanted to have some…?” 

Turning around, Donghyuck is met with two big black orbs staring at him almost pleadingly. 

It’s Mark - of course, who else - with his eyebrows pulled up high on his forehead. They kind of look like seagulls trying to fly away. It’s annoyingly charming. 

Unable to remember how speaking works, Donghyuck stares at him shamelessly. The last few days he’s been so focused on avoiding Mark at all costs, he didn’t even take notice of how handsome he is. He has nice sharp cheekbones—very very nice cheekbones—and the way his hair lies unkempt across his forehead makes him look so youthful that the longer Donghyuck looks at it the tighter his chest is starting to feel. It also seems kind of soft… if only he could run his fingers through it...

_Snap out of it!_

He realises he has drifted off and been staring at Mark for a little too long when Mark can’t seem to look into his eyes anymore, nervously rubbing his neck, his red flushed ears lighting up the whole store.

_Is he intimidated?_

Now Donghyuck feels too bad for him to say no.

“What are you standing around for, give me the damn worms already!”

* * *

Turns out avoiding Mark Lee isn’t as easy as Donghyuck expected it to be. While he thought they came to the silent agreement to ignore each other, Mark does everything except that.

Instead he keeps bringing snacks to work that he always ends up sharing with Donghyuck. And it’s mostly his favorites too - Donghyuck hasn’t ever told him what he likes, somehow Mark just knows.

And while Donghyuck keeps his silence, pressing his lips together and acting nonchalant, Mark spends their shift telling him unsolicitedly about how his day has been, how he’s lived in Canada for most of his life and his dream of becoming an author, and about how he thinks Donghyuck’s badly done purple dye job looks good on him—and Donghyuck, Donghyuck falls quickly, without wanting to, hard. 

Since that first Tuesday they met he hasn’t heard Mark laugh again, perhaps because Mark noticed Donghyuck tensing up like a defensive cat the first time he did. 

But Mark always remembers to give him warm smiles after every sentence he speaks to him, as if encouraging him to reach out his hand and allow them to be friends. 

It’s pushing Donghyuck’s thoughts into turmoil and sometimes when he looks at Mark the withheld affection within him and the need to let it out grows so much it feels like there’s a swarm of bees crawling up his throat.

He doesn’t like it, it’s scary. 

Somewhere out there, his soulmate is waiting for him. And even if he hates the way they’re making his stomach hurt and plans on paying them back for it, secretly it still feels like a crime to look at someone else nonetheless.

* * *

“Renjun you don’t understand, I am in a crisis!” Donghyuck whines. He’s currently laid out on Renjun’s bean bag, limbs spread out and head fallen back as if he’s a stranded sea star.

The view of his best friend’s dorm room turned upside down is quite literally exactly how he feels - totally taken out of his familiar environment - and Donghyuck hates not being in tune with what’s going on in his life. He always needs to be a step ahead.

Renjun doesn’t even spare him a glance from where he’s perched on his bed, knees up to his chest while he’s rapidly typing into his phone.

“I don’t get what you’re freaking out about. Your new coworker is cute. So what?” 

Affronted, Donghyuck moves to sit up way too quickly and tumbles off the bean bag.

“He’s not just cute!” he almost screeches. “If you stopped snapchatting your girlfriend for a second and listened you would have heard that he’s taught himself how to play the guitar Renjun! Who even does that? He’s just so... unnaturally perfect!” 

Donghyuck stares at Renjun accusingly, waiting for him to lift his head only to have a judging glance shot his way. 

“Sounds like a you problem. If he’s so perfect go ask him out or something.”

As precious of a friend as he is, sometimes Renjun just does not understand. “I can’t! You know he isn’t my soulmate, that’s the problem!”

The sigh Renjun lets out carries all the exasperation a body as tiny as his can carry. “Now that’s funny, didn’t you always say you wanted to date someone other than your soulmate because you can’t stand them?”

Yes. Donghyuck indeed used to say that, a lot. 

But now that he actually thinks of someone as cute for the first time in his life, it doesn’t feel all that nice anymore. 

Behind the pretentious shell he shows to the outside, in the end, at his heart Donghyuck will always be a secret romantic.

He’s spent all his life being angry at his soulmate and fate - but thinking about it now, if his soulmate turned out to be as endearing as Mark, he might just be able to overlook the unfavorable past and endure their annoying laughter. 

After all, Mark has an irritating laugh and somehow still manages to be the cutest boy Donghyuck has ever met.

People like Renjun, they will never understand his situation. Renjun had looked towards meeting his soulmate all his life before he met Chenle, and knew she was the one the moment he stood at her doorstep to tutor her in Korean and she laughed into his face for being smaller than her. They started dating soon after and have made Donghyuck’s life insufferable ever since.

Even Donghyuck's older brother has been engaged to his soulmate for a few months now, and Donghyuck still clearly remembers many nights of Doyoung sitting at the dinner table with a beaming smile, telling their parents about how he could feel his other half had a happy day, while Donghyuck next to him was toppling over from pain.

It seems like everyone around him has the perfect love story without complications. Nobody can empathize with his soulmate bond having been a burden to Donghyuck all his life. And how overwhelming it is that now, when he’s finally met a person that makes his heart beat faster, suddenly his gut is telling him to wait for his soulmate after all. 

He doesn’t know where to go with all these conflicting confusing emotions inside of him. 

It doesn’t help that Mark has a soulmate out there himself. Someone who is just as nice as him and actually emotionally available.

Someone who isn’t Donghyuck.

* * *

For the last ten minutes Mark has been sitting on the ground playing around with a glowing Rubik's cube, while Donghyuck was staring at the giant black bag Mark had put under the table when he stormed in before the start of their shift. 

Finally he can’t keep his curiosity in anymore.

“Mark, what’s in that bag?” Donghyuck eyes Mark critically. “Did you finally decide to get rid of me so you could steal my spot as employee of the month, and plan to put my dead body in there?” 

Mark tenses as if Donghyuck caught him doing something bad, and there’s an almost immediate flush across his cheeks, which makes him all the more suspicious.

“Come on Markus, what’s in the bag?” he commands.

“Ah right, the bag.” Mark smiles sheepishly, totally not causing Donghyuck’s hands to get sweaty. “I, uhm, actually brought my guitar? Because when I told you about it you just seemed so interested I thought I should bring it some day?” 

Donghyuck hopes he’s good at hiding the flips his stomach is doing. 

Realising Donghyuck doesn’t plan on responding anytime soon, Mark rubs his neck—something Donghyuck has noticed he does quite often when he’s put into awkward situations— and speaks up again. “I thought perhaps...I could like teach you or something?”

He looks up to Donghyuck from the floor with something akin to hope in his eyes, and there’s a thought running through Donghyuck’s mind about how Mark’s eyes sparkle so much he would be able to find him even in the dark. It makes him want to throw up, disgusted by his own cheesiness.

Usually he always knows what to say, some would even say he talks too much, but Mark constantly manages to catch him off guard and put him at a loss for words. 

_Exhale, don’t let your expression show anything other than disinterest._

“Okay, that’s cool.”

If the croak in his voice reveals a part of Donghyuck’s true feelings to Mark, he doesn’t show it. He just sends Donghyuck one of his charmingly crooked smiles and pats the ground next to him. “Sit down with me then!”

* * *

They’re still sitting there when it’s gotten dark outside. Their shift is probably about to end soon, but they’ve lost all track of time with no visible interest to check the clock coming from either of them.

Donghyuck pretends he’s attentively listening to whatever Mark is currently explaining about chords, but in reality all he can focus on is the warmth of Mark’s arm around his shoulder, and the tingles spreading from his fingertips throughout his whole body whenever Mark grabs his hand to show him the correct finger placements.

Having Mark’s body so close to his own, their legs tightly pressed against each other, it’s overwhelming and stressful but incredibly thrilling at the same time. 

Much to Donghyuck’s dismay, Mark eventually slides his arm off his shoulder; but before he can start missing his warmth, Mark’s hand has already found its way onto Donghyuck’s knee, absentmindedly stroking it reassuringly. 

When Donghyuck looks up from the music sheets, Mark’s bright smile and twinkling eyes are already right there waiting for him. “See, you have already learned quite a bit, you’re a natural!”

He looks so genuinely excited and proud over Donghyuck’s process, that Donghyuck can’t find it in him to retort with a brash remark. 

He wonders how long he’ll be able to continue hiding his true feelings when with every little smile that Mark sends him, he’s simultaneously stealing away some of Donghyuck’s strength?

It’s tough to keep on his mask of indifference when Mark is the one cheering on Donghyuck’s demons to break down his walls. The weight of unspoken feelings is harshly pressing down onto Donghyuck’s chest, as if to forcefully push a confession out of him.

Donghyuck sends Mark a wavering smile, “Maybe I just improved so quickly because I had such a good teacher. Thank you Mark, really, I had fun today.”

The grin on Mark’s face could rival the sun if anyone asked Donghyuck.

“Me too Hyuckie, we should do this again sometime!”

His face burning at the nickname, Donghyuck can only nod his head weakly. 

Slowly they get up, dusting off their knees and picking up the music notes from the ground. As their heads bump against each other and they painfully try to avoid each other’s gazes, Donghyuck can practically feel the tension in the air. 

Maybe it’s the darkness of the night making them feel like the only two people in the world at this very moment, or perhaps Donghyuck is weakened from holding on to denial for too long - but he has never felt this nervous around Mark before; it’s as if the room is fizzling with unsaid feelings, the walls of the store whispering to each other as they watch the finale to the love that has been happening in front of them.

Wanting to loosen up the odd mood they’re in, Mark playfully pokes Donghyuck’s arm and grimaces, and after holding himself back all day - or perhaps due to a push of fate - suddenly looking at sweet genuine Mark with his face scrunched up, giggles curl out of Donghyuck’s mouth and into the air, impossible to be swallowed.

Donghyuck’s whole body is shaking from laughter and he has to grip the edge of the table to hold himself up, when he realises Mark is staring at him in shock, eyes wide open and hand pressed to his stomach as if he’s overcome by a wave of pain.

Donghyuck lets out a gasp -

_Oh._

For a moment they just stare at each other nervously, but then overcome with bravery Donghyuck grabs Mark by his collar and pulls him closer to press a soft kiss against his lips. 

Once Mark unfreezes, he gently cups Donghyuck’s cheeks in his hands and reciprocates; and comforting warmth spreads through them, as if each other’s touch is a newfound home.

When they separate and Mark lets out a breathless laugh, Donghyuck doesn’t feel any pain - the loving flutter in his stomach, however, stays.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it <3
> 
> shoutout to my beta, I'm almost as bad with commas as donghyuck is with feelings and I couldn't have done this without your help! also to the friends who sent me comforting words while I was writing this; and of course special thanks to the alw team for organising this lovely ficfest, if anything makes my stomach flutter it's the announcement of new alw postings 
> 
> kudos and comments are much appreciated!<3


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